A CAUTIONARY THOUGHT
It is now not quite six weeks since the Iowa caucuses. There are four more months until the Republican Convention. Considering the speed with which the Trump campaign is spiraling into full-blown fascism, it is rather terrifying to think what may develop in those four months.
Keep in mind that Hitler's supporters had legitimate economic grievances. Recall as well that Weimar Germany, which bred Nazism, was in many ways the culturally and intellectually most advanced society in Europe at the time.
This is no longer in the slightest amusing.
And Trump is trying to spin the Chicago protests like the Reichstag Fire, blaming "Bernie, our communist friend."
ReplyDeleteAnd the culture in Weimar Germany had taken what many in the uneducated classes considered a "decadent" turn (i.e., the cafe life depicted in "Cabaret"). Today in the US, many, esp. in the south, feel that way about gay pride, rap, some forms of art, etc.
ReplyDeleteAnother parallel: No one can figure out why Trump would appeal to evangelical Christians, but in Germany most Protestant churches became "Reich churches." It was left to people like Bonhoeffer and Barth to try with marginal success to establish a "Confessing Church" that opposed the Third Reich. When the so-called "German Christians" in the Reich churches began to expel converted Jews, Bonhoeffer and others indignantly argued the obvious fact that Jesus himself was Jewish. They didn't care. They had a new messiah.
ReplyDeleteTom, thank you for those pointed and knowledgeable comments. This is a troubling time, and if necessary, we must be ready to get out into the streets and oppose fascism.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I've genuinely felt fear regarding American politics:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35791008
The Chicago episode I interpret as a good thing. "There will be an angry letter in the Times tomorrow." is not perhaps the best way to oppose Trump.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/donald-trump-chicago-protest-213728#ixzz42oC8qYAB
ReplyDeleteI am afraid that we may be dealing with what Donald Trump has unleashed for years to come.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Wolff, I remember when you concluded your review of Capital in the Twenty-First Century and you discussed Piketty's fear of destabilization resulting from extreme wealth inequality. This comment struck me at the time:
"My speculation -- and it really is only that -- is that Piketty fears a right-wing uprising, a revanchist resurgence of the fascism that always lurks below the surface in modern Europe."
It occurs to me that American-style fascism is different than the European fascism you described as always lurking below the surface, but I'm not clear about how they're different. Do you have any insight into this?